


Beautiful Lies

by Batsymomma11



Series: Blark Files [21]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types, Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Major Illness, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 00:13:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19073554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batsymomma11/pseuds/Batsymomma11
Summary: Clark and Bruce get a kick in the ass in regards to their friendly-friendship in the form of a health scare.





	Beautiful Lies

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own DC or its characters. I do own this story. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and enjoy! It's not as happy as some of the other Blark Files, so be aware of that. But it does end with a hopeful note. 
> 
> The title is taken from the song Beautiful Lies by Birdy. If you're feeling extra angsty, listen to the song before reading this. This melody and lyrics will put you in the right frame of mind.

            Clark noticed when Bruce began to lose weight first.

            Then it was the dark circles that pressed deeply beneath his exhausted gaze. The slope of those proud shoulders, curving in and lacking their usual rigid discipline. After that, Clark noticed all manner of irregularities in his best friend’s behavior and overall appearance.

            Bruce lost his temper more often.

            He showed up late to JLA meetings off and on—something he simply never did before. He got distracted, drifted off in conversation, or forgot about previously scheduled appointments with increasing regularity.

            On a Friday morning, when Bruce and Clark usually went for coffee at one of the upscale organic places Bruce frequented, Clark realized he’d seen enough. His breath caught in his lungs when he watched Bruce sway then catch himself by leaning on a wall for support outside the men’s restroom in Wayne Tower. Bruce hadn’t known that Clark witnessed the lapse in strength. Clark said nothing over breakfast and silently watched Bruce gracefully cover up how badly his hands shook. Or that he had to use the table to stand up after eating.  

            It only took Clark another day before he worked up the courage to confront Bruce. Mostly because he was anticipating a monumental fight. Bruce was rigidly protective of his privacy and if it had anything to do with his health or how he regulated his body, Bruce could be vicious in his response.

He _hated_ feeling inferior in any capacity.

            Clark approached Bruce in the late afternoon, hoping to catch him with a cup of coffee in the study or out in the pool swimming his usual laps with one of the boys.

            That wasn’t the case.

            Alfred directed him to Bruce’s bedroom and Clark found his best friend curled up into a tight ball in the center of his bed—sweaty, pale, and looking far, far too thin.

            “Bruce,” Clark murmured, staring down at the outright frightening picture Bruce made, “What’s going on?”

            Bruce blinked open blurry eyes and gave a weak laugh that sounded thick with pain, “I’m sick, Clark.”

            “Sick?”

            “Yes.”

            Clark took a seat on the edge of the bed and reached for one of Bruce’s hands to hold. Bruce let him, only eyeing their wound fingers with mild censure. “How long?”

            “A few months.”

            Clark wanted to ask a thousand questions. No—he wanted to demand them. But he knew Bruce well enough to see the man wanted a couple of minutes to collect his thoughts before explaining.

            The clock on the mantle sounded cacophonous. The bedroom was too warm and Clark itched to stand up and open the drapes or crack the window for fresh air. Because—because right then, Clark could smell the _sickness_ on Bruce. He could smell it in his blood, his skin and hair, his breaths that were too shallow and thin for comfort. He wondered how the hell he’d missed how bad it had gotten and why he’d waited for so long.

            Too long.

            “Remember when we were in the Antares system brokering the peace treaty between the Alstair and the Anses?”

            Clark nodded, rubbing a thumb over the back of Bruce’s hand. The skin felt fragile.

            “I felt off when we came back. But I ignored it for a while. I was tired from the long distance travel and I’m not so oblivious to know that I overdo it. After a couple of weeks though, the exhaustion wouldn’t let up, so I went to Leslie and she ran some tests.”

            Clark swallowed, “And she found something.”

            “Yes,” Bruce blew out a weak breath, closing his eyes, “She found out I had somehow contracted a degenerative virus unique to the Antares system. As a human, I was never inoculated against it.”

            “How did—”

            “I’ve been bringing Leslie samples from JLA missions for years. It’s become a bit of a hobby for us both.”

            “I had no idea.”

            Bruce snorted, “Why would you?”

            “Bruce—”

            “I know,” Bruce sighed, peering up at Clark through puffy eyelids, “You need to know more.”

            “I do.”

            “It’s attacking my immune system.”

            “Is the damage permanent?”

            Bruce nodded slowly, “So far, that’s what it looks like. As far as we know, there is no cure. Leslie has reached out to Hal to contact the Guardians on OA to see if they know of any treatment but thus far we’ve just been—we’ve been trying to mitigate the symptoms and make me—comfortable.”

            “Till…”

            Bruce’s eyes flickered closed, “Till I die.”

            “You can’t be serious.”

            “Clark, I wouldn’t joke about this.”

            “Bruce,” Clark’s hand spasmed around Bruce’s, “How—how could you keep this from me? How could you not tell me for—for months?”

            “Clark, calm down.”

            “No,” Clark shot to his feet, breaking contact with Bruce to give himself some space. If he wasn’t careful, he might accidentally hurt Bruce and that was the last thing he wanted to do. “You don’t get to tell me to calm down. You don’t get to do that after keeping this horrible ugly thing from me. You’ve—you’ve cheated me out of time with my best friend! Time I can’t get back.”

            “Clark.”

            “Damn you, Bruce,” Clark’s throat was slamming closed and he was struggling to gulp down air, struggling to control the dull throb of blood roaring in his ears. Bruce was a lot of things, but he’d never pegged him for being a fool.

            Clark had thought he would be facing some sort of infection or perhaps an injury Bruce was too stubborn to disclose and get the proper treatment for—not this. Never this. Not his best friend, his—his—

            “Clark. Please. I can’t do this right now. I’m tired and I just—”

            “What?” Clark snapped, “You want me to sit down and hold your hand and be happy with whatever you want to give me.”

            “No. No that’s not—”

            “God damn it, Bruce,” Clark’s voice broke and his eyes swam with tears, blurring the image of Bruce lying prone on the mattress, “How could you do this to me?”

            “I’m sorry.”

            Clark covered his face with both hands, breathed through a rash of emotion so strong and feral that it threatened to buckle him. Then he sat back down, reached out for Bruce’s hand once more and willed himself not to break. He muscled past the ache that was starting deep in his chest, leeching into his bones and watched as tears welled up in Bruce’s eyes and fell silently down thin cheeks.

            He swiped angrily at his own tears, berating himself for being a damned fool. Hating himself for being a coward.

            He willed himself to ignore the sting. To pretend—to pretend things were different. And that he had more time. Time to figure out how to tell Bruce all the things he swore one day he was going to. Time to savor the small moments and the details that he should have been savoring all along.

            “Clark—” Bruce’s voice was ragged, smothered in tears, “Could you lie down with me for a while?”

            Clark could never recall Bruce ever asking for something like that. Bruce wouldn’t have. Not the one he knew. Bruce wouldn’t show his humanity by crying quietly into his thousand thread count pillows either. But he was doing both. He was reaching for Clark, nestling into Clark’s chest, his cheek warm and damp on Clark’s skin, breathing a reassuring sign of continuing life, despite everything Clark had just learned.

            He was showing Clark just how vulnerable and human and breakable he was. And it was frightening Clark.

            “I should have asked you for this sooner.”

            Clark’s eyes shuttered closed and he counted Bruce’s breaths, then the heartbeats until he could respond.

            “You should have.”

            “Could you do me a favor?”

            One of Clark’s hands was supporting Bruce’s low back and the other had found its way to the dark hair that was getting a little longer than Bruce liked over his ears. Bruce’s eyes were closed, but he was leaning into each touch, his face soft and open. Needy.

            “I can try.”

            “Lie to me.”

            “What?”

            Bruce hummed in response, nuzzling his face into Clark’s hand, brushing warm dry lips over Clark’s palm. “Lie. Tell me beautiful little lies about how all of this is just a bad dream. I’ll wake up tomorrow and be better. You’ll stay with me. We’ll grow old together and live happily ever after.”

            Spiders of pain ran down Clark’s arms and into his chest where they rooted beneath his breastbone and threatened to destroy him. He—he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t lose Bruce. Not like this. Not when they’d both been too foolish to do anything about what had always been between them. Not when he had his hands in Bruce’s hair and was holding him this close, heart to heart, body to body. Not now.

            God—

            “Please, Clark.”

            “Bruce, I don’t know if—”

            “Please lie. I need to hear the lies. I don’t need honesty right now. I’ve had enough truth.”

            Clark started with small lies. He found himself murmuring about how Bruce would feel better after a little nap and some food. He just needed rest. But the longer Clark traced patterns into Bruce’s skin and listened to his slowing pulse, the more the lies became fanciful and embellished. The more they became dreams and wishes of a future he could have with Bruce.

            He wanted to believe them.

            “Where would we live?”

            “Here,” Clark said softly, running his fingers over Bruce’s lips, his chin, then his throat, “Alfred wouldn’t want us far from him.”

            “We would never fight.”

            Clark shook his head, “No. Never. There would be nothing to fight about.”

            “Naturally,” Bruce smiled, his eyes still closed and his voice sounding sleep-drenched, “Would we make good lovers?”

            Clark tipped his head back into the pillows, stared at the ceiling and felt a sob rising in his chest, ugly and unwelcome. “The best, Bruce. We would make excellent lovers. Perfectly suited.”

            “Would you top or bottom?”

            Clark laughed, watery and amused, “I don’t care.”

            “Don’t you?”

            “Not really. As long as I have you.”

            “Bottom for me then.”

            Clark peered down at Bruce and saw the man smirking up at him through dark lashes and could only shake his head. “Figures you’d like to bottom. You scream control-freak on the outside, but in the bedroom—”

            Bruce lifted a brow, “There is nothing wrong with wanting to let go every once in a while.”

            Clark agreed, “No. No there isn’t.”

            “We would have grandchildren. Too many to keep track of.”

            “But you’d keep track. You always do. And we’d spoil them rotten then send them home with the boys. You would make a terribly good grandfather and I’d insist they call you Poppy just to irritate you.”

            Bruce snorted, “If I’m Poppy then you’re Papa.”

            “We could summer at the Kent farm.”

            Bruce’s mouth was a delicate press on his collarbones, a testing of waters that Clark found endearing and wrenching. “I could try my hand at gardening.”

            “And you would probably create some sort of genetically engineered super tomato capable of curing cancer.”

            “No, I would go all-organic, Clark.”

            “Right. Of course,” Clark strained to smile, struggled to force it into his voice, “And we would travel. You could take me to all those hidden places and niches you found during your travels. I could take you to mine.”

            “And then defile every one of them with copious amounts of sex.”

            Clark chuckled, smoothing back the hair from Bruce’s forehead, feeling unease blossoming into fear as he took note of how warm Bruce felt. How Bruce was shivering despite being buried in comforters and using Clark like a quilt.  

            Minutes drifted, Clark told a few more lies and answered nonsensical questions about a life that might never exist and started to drift with Bruce. By nightfall, they were both so exhausted they fell asleep wrapped around each other.

            Bruce slept for four hours before waking and then vomiting all over the bed. All over himself.

            Reality was cold and bitter.

            It was nothing like the gossamer folds of the world they’d spent the afternoon building. It was not an illness or decaying cells. It wasn’t hypoxic tissues or desperate white blood cell counts. It wasn’t degenerative alien viruses that stole a perfectly good life before its time.

            It wasn’t Bruce hunched over the toilet bowl retching at two in the morning.

            Clark remained at Bruce’s side, helped him get cleaned up, then back to bed. Bruce’s skin felt hot to the touch, tremendously feverish when they crawled into bed and Bruce immediately curled into him. Clark’s arms fit too easily around his shoulders and he sat for long breathless minutes after he knew Bruce fell back asleep to find his balance once more.

            He took a page out of Bruce’s book. He told himself beautiful lies. He let himself believe the lies…until he heard Bruce’s phone vibrating on the nightstand and was forced back once more. Bruce grumbled as Clark extricated himself, then pulled the covers over his head and reborrowed.

            It brought a smile to Clark’s mouth.

            The message on Bruce’s phone was simple. It was—it was so simple, so stunning really, that Clark had to reread it several times.

            He was afraid it was another lie he’d conjured. A lie that was too good, too beautiful to be true.

            _Bruce, call me. I’ve got something. We might have gotten our miracle._

The ID said it was Leslie.

            It was strange climbing back into bed, combing through the covers and calmly waking Bruce. It was even more surreal to lean down and kiss the other man, to press his mouth firmly to a mouth that he’d never dared to before. And to feel Bruce kiss him back, lean into him, linger as if they kissed every day. As if it were normal and not something they’d quite literally just started up with a kick in the ass from a super virus.

            “Bruce—” Clark breathed, framing Bruce’s face as he drew back and smiled into a pair of glossy gray eyes, “Leslie texted.”

            “What did she say?”  

            “You need to call her.”

            The phone call only lasted a handful of minutes and when Bruce hung up, there was an awful silence that descended over the bedroom. A quiet insidious threat that felt suffocating around them.

            “Did Leslie—”

            “Hal contacted her. She’s working on an anti-viral. It might work.”

            “It might not?”

            Bruce shrugged a shoulder, his back still to Clark, the lines of his vertebrae curving in a long lean line. “She doesn’t know. But we have a chance.”

            “A chance is better than no chance at all.”

            “Yes,” Bruce looked over one shoulder and offered a weary rueful smile, “Nothing like giving deathbed confessions only to find out the person might not die after all.”

            “Christ, Bruce.”

            Bruce laughed humorlessly, shoulders curving inward, body sagging in defeat. “I still might die, Clark.”

            “I know.”

            “All those things you said—”

            “They don’t have to be lies. They could be real. You and me, Bruce. They have every chance of being real.”

            “Clark—the damage that has been done, the things the virus did to me—I might not ever be—”

            “I don’t care.”

            “And if I only live another month? A week?”

            “It doesn’t matter,” Clark shook his head, reaching for Bruce, tugging a little to get the man to come closer and share warmth again. “I’ve got you now. That’s what matters.”

            “No regrets?” Bruce murmured, tipping his chin up to kiss the corner of Clark’s mouth.

            Clark bit his lip, shook his head, “No. None.”

            “Could you make one thing not a lie for me now?”

            “Anything.”

            Bruce pushed to a shaky stand, stood awkwardly for a moment in front of Clark, then started to undress. It didn’t take more than a second to realize Bruce’s intentions. Clark had promised they would fit together easily. He’d promised their love life would be so good he’d keep Bruce in bed for days, simply worshipping Bruce’s body with his own.

            He’d ‘lied’ about a great many things.

            “Are you sure?”

            Bruce didn’t look sure. He looked embarrassed when he got fully naked and Clark was still sitting on the bed, staring up at him, too slow to stand because of how stunning Bruce was. Even thin and pale. Even feverish. Bruce was stunning.

            “Are you?”

            Clark nodded, mouth dry, eyes suddenly burning again, blurring Bruce’s face under an ocean of fears, “I’m sure, Bruce. Come here.”

            It was the easiest thing to make a lie no more.    

           

           


End file.
